Cartographies of Disappearance: Thresholds in Barcelona's Metro
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Cartographies of disappearance: Thresholds in Barcelona’s metro Enric Bou, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Abstract This article proposes an analysis of Barcelona’s metro system following David Pike’s threshold concept, key to the topography of the ‘vertical city’. This will be done through reading maps and literary texts that illustrate three closely related issues: an interpretation of Barcelona’s metro network and its meanings; the disappearance of some metro stations and underground spaces, such as hidden connecting corridors, which create a shallow presence of the past into the present, examples of urban spaces that are buried and forgotten; and subway life as portrayed in some literary texts with particular emphasis on the use of mythology. Keywords metro systems urban literature everyday life disappearance ghost stations maps Barcelona In June 2013, I visited – with my son – the exhibition celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Tren de Sarrià (Sarrià Train), formerly known as Els Ferrocarrils Catalans (Catalan Railways). The exhibit took place at the site of a former cinema called Avenida de la Luz (Avenue of Light). Since 1979, the railway has become a public-owned company, and it is now called, less compromisingly, FGC: Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (Generalitat of Catalonia Railways) (fgc150 2013). I was unpleasantly surprised by the self-celebratory nature of the exhibition and how little attention was given to a critical reading of the past. Trying to explain the meaning of FGC to my son, immediately a variety of texts came to mind that provided a different version of Barcelona’s metro. I also thought of all those hidden underground empty spaces, or those redesigned for a new use, that populate our cities. It was easy to make the connection because we were at the site of a former cinema and next door to the former and once flamboyant avenue bearing the same name that was inaugurated in 1940 and closed in disarray in 1990. It had been converted into a place for drug dealing and treacherous encounters, and is now a dreary Sephora store. In this article my attention is devoted to three interrelated issues: the layout of Barcelona’s network and its meanings; the disappearance of some metro stations and underground spaces such as connecting corridors; and Barcelona subway life as portrayed in literary texts. These are texts that have something in common: they depict metro riding as an experience analogous to exploring the inner self, exposing the many absurdities in life. In addition, they draw upon mythological references to imbue the metro experience with a more positive aura. On the other hand, the writers considered here pay attention to the lack of natural light in the underground and the confluence of people from many backgrounds and circumstances within a closed space, thus creating a sort of temporary melting pot that stresses divergence and conflict. These writers acknowledge the dialectical interrelations between the built environment and the urban consciousness, leaving room for oppositional forms of consciousness (Masterson-Algar 2014: 70). David Pike’s threshold concept provides a helpful explanation for the topography of the ‘vertical city’ because ‘it figures the ways in which the two spaces [aboveground and underground] overlap and the ways in which they remain fundamentally different’ (2007: 64). The texts and spaces examined provide a 2 threshold that ‘figures the moments that link aboveground and underground, where what is hidden emerges into visibility’ (Pike 2005:16). Notes on Barcelona’s metro system A city’s metro system is a unique piece of its environment that links two aspects of urban space. As stated by Lewis Mumford, ‘the modern city plan involves a coordination of the super-surface city with the sub-surface city’ (quoted in Williams 2008: 52); there is a direct connection between our wide knowledge of the surface and very limited knowledge of the urban underworld. According to Ashford, ‘[t]he Underground is a transitional form, linking the alienated space of production created by the Industrial Revolution to the fully virtual spaces of late capitalism that emerged following the Cold War’ (2013: 2). Development of Barcelona’s underground transportation has been the result of disparate initiatives and bad planning, which shows through in its topsy-turvy layout and current condition. 1 Tracing the many changes that Barcelona’s rail system has undergone reveals that even as the metro came to be a mirror for collective wishes and frustrations it persistently lacked coherence. The first application for the construction of a railway between Barcelona and the nearby town of Sarrià was filed in 1851, three years after the opening of the first railway line connecting Barcelona and Mataró. The Sarrià train began operating in 1863, the same year as the London Underground. It was a short line, only 4600 metres in length, starting in what is today known as the Plaça de Catalunya (Catalonia Square), and crossing Barcelona through the villages of Gràcia and Sant Gervasi to arrive in Sarrià, at the foot of the Collserola mountain. For many decades, the trains were operated by steam locomotives, but in 1905, with the gradual development of the Eixample district, they were upgraded to electrical shilpa ! 2/12/2016 15:47 Comment [1]: Please confirm whether the changes made are OK. OK, EB 3 locomotives, as described by Joan Maragall. In his article ‘L’últim xiscle’ (The last cry), Maragall stresses change and loss, and thus disappearance of a way of life: L'endemà – ja ho havia llegit en el diari – l'endemà començava la tracció elèctrica. Ja no'l sentiriem xiular mai més aquell tren de Sarrià: aquell xiscle era un adéu; el tren se'n anava no cap a Sarrià, sino cap ala eternitat: no'l tornariem a sentir mai més. (‘The next day – I had already read about it in the newspaper– next day began electric traction. Since we would not listen ever again to the train of Sarrià whistle: that was a goodbye scream; it was not the train of Sarrià, but to eternity: we would not listen it ever again.) (Maragall 1912: 155) The Sarrià train became the first electric railway in Catalonia. The engineer Carles Emili Montañés convinced Frederick S. Pearson, an engineer from Lowell, Massachussetts, to purchase the Sarrià-Barcelona line and its extension towards Vallès. In 1912, it was incorporated as Ferrocarriles de Cataluña (Catalonia Railways). In 1917, the company opened the double track to Sant Cugat del Vallès. In 1919 the line reached Terrassa, and Sabadell in 1922. The line ran on the surface until 1929 when the section Catalunya-Muntaner was buried. In 1953, a branch from Gràcia to Avinguda Tibidabo was inaugurated. The urban lines became L6 and L7 (fgc150 2013). When the line was buried it got the attention of a sharp- sighted journalist named Gaziel, who in a memorable article, ‘Pequeña elegía urbana (Little Urban Elegy)’, evoked his personal relationship with the Sarrià train. In the article, he recalls the 40 years since he started using the line, the impact of industrialization on ways of life, ending with a characteristic Gaziel observation, longing or imagining (or assuming) what the future may bring: 4 ¿Es un sueño? No; es algo parecido: cuarenta años de vida. […] Al constatar sus extraordinarias mudanzas es forzoso sentir que, en nuestra brevedad, todo lo que fuimos en el seno de esa vida municipal gigantesca, se borra paulatinamente, y nuestra propia vida se va convirtiendo poco a poco en estampas del tiempo pasado [It is a dream? No. It is something similar: forty years of life. […] When acknowledging its extraordinary changes you must feel that in our brevity, everything that we witnessed within that giant municipal life, is gradually erased, and our life is becoming gradually prints from the past. (Gaziel 1929) Gaziel’s elegy for a time past emphasizes the speed at which changes occur, resulting in a fragile awareness of transience: we are meant to be swallowed and disappear. He does not notice the fact that there is an important transformation in city life: the underground swallows a former surface train. Demolition and erasure bring with them a sudden appreciation of what is no longer there, and this is a distinctive feature of our experience of the modern cityscape: ‘perpetual change erases memory’. The endless quest for novelty merges into the flow of undifferentiated, empty time where the past is consigned to oblivion by the present, and perhaps most importantly it may fleetingly reappear as a disturbance that gives a shock to today’s passer-by (Gilloch 2004: 300). This peculiarity is particularly eloquent in the slow transformation of city underground life. Circulating underground, that line lost its character as an urban train and became a real metro. Gran Metropolitano de Barcelona (Barcelona’s Big Metro, known as Gran Metro) was created on 26 May 1921 to construct and operate a subway line, now called L3. On 30 December 1924 the section between Lesseps and Catalonia was inaugurated (Reyes 2014). It had a length of 2470 km and four stations. Initially the project was to connect La Bonanova 5 with Estació de França, but this never materialized. In 1926 a new branch was added. From Aragó station one branch would go to Liceu (it became later L3), and the other one to Correos (The Post). This second was converted in the 1980s into L4. Metro Transversal began as an underground electric traction railway with the goal of establishing a transversal connection between the stations of the Barcelona-Tarragona and Barcelona to France railway lines (currently underused Estació de França, France’s Station) and the other train stations: Estació del Nord (North Station), Estació Magòria (Magòria Station) (narrow-gauge railway to Berga), Estació P.